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Winner Announced & Lessons Learned

Thanks to everyone who entered! And thank you so much for stopping by to check out some of the amazing and interesting recipes I've experimented with in 2014. I appreciate every single visit. :-) I hope you'll continue to come back and try some of the ration recipes I've featured here.

So, through a year of cooking my way through all kinds of WWII ration recipes I've learned a lot. Among the things I've learned are:

1. The cooks of the '40s were awesome at portion size. They never ceased to amaze me.

2. There are great ways of replacing sugar in recipes like using jams/marmalades, sweetened condensed milk, cake crumbs, canned fruit syrup, and molasses!

3. There was a huge different between the rationing experiences of the Brits compared with the Americans. The Americans had much more variety in ingredients and recipes.

4. I conquered some fears to try some odd recipes involving liver, Jello (and salt!), gelatin-enhanced butter, tomato aspic, crazy whipped cream alternatives, and soya flour. I gotta be honest. Some of these recipes ended up being tossed to the chickens. :-)

5. The British and the Americans were endlessly creative in getting their nutrition into their wartime diet. Nutrition was up there in patriotic duty with doing your bit in war/volunteer work and buying war bonds.

6. I will never think of packing a lunchbox in the same way ever again. Using slices of a quick bread loaf (like the delicious Orange Honey Loaf) to change things up for a sandwich is brilliant!

7. The women of the home had a really tough job balancing war work, volunteering, childcare, home care, and meal preparations with the added stress of dealing with rationing and ration points/tokens!

8. Frequent desserts became a standard part of the American diet during the 1940s. Comfort foods and sweets were all part of boosting morale and they've stood fast in our culture to this day.

9. Fat was invaluable. They needed to save every last drop.

10. It's always good to try new foods and recipes, even if they seem scary at first, because they might turn out to actually be pretty good... but if not, at least you tried it! You can always learn from every experience whether good or bad.

Haha! I've always loved this poster!

And finally, here is a list of the top 10 best and the top 10 worst recipes that I tried this year! I thought it might be good to have a recap and a future reference. :-)

There were a whole lot of yummy recipes, but I had to narrow it down somewhat!Top 10 Best Recipes:

What a fun and educational year it has been! I'll be sad not to be trying out a ration recipe every week and posting about it anymore, but I think I'll still try one out periodically and write about it on here. There's no one saying I can't, so ha! :-)

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It's here!!! The Wartime Rationing Menu Challenge has finally arrived!
Are you as thrilled as I am? I've been working steadily on this project for two months - trying out test recipes, choosing menus for the next six months, typing everything up, formatting and getting it ready to share. It's been a lot of work, but I'm so excited to share these recipes with you all. It's been hard not to get cooking already!
So, are you ready?

First up, I want to put in a disclaimer. I'm starting this ration menu challenge, and I'm going to follow it the best I can, but I'm just like you - busy with life and all the little moments of chaos that come up when they're the least expected. This isn't a hardcore challenge. Remember that it's for fun, for learning about a cool era of historical cooking in America, and to get yourself into your kitchen trying out some new recipes! If you find some fabulous new favorites, even better.

Grapefruit
Cooked Cereal
Fluffy Omelet
Whole Wheat Toast
Coffee/Malted Milk
I kept it mostly the same with only a few changes due to what we had on hand:
Orange slices
Cooked 10-grain cereal
Fluffy Omelet
Bread w/ a bit of butter
Coffee substitute (Teaccino)
Yum! It was a nice breakfast, especially since it wasn't just cold cereal. To make the fluffy omelet, I didn't follow a recipe. I just added some milk to the scrambled eggs which makes it fluffy as it slowly cooks. And I sprinkled a bit of cheese on top.

LUNCH
The lunch menu was quite lovely! We actually had it for a light supper.
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Berry Patch Salad
Toasted Muffins
Tea/Milk
I stuck to this menu, and used a recipe for the soup from one of my wartime cookbooks. It used a mixture of milk and evaporated milk. I used up some light …

If ever there was a myth about history it would be this: Things were dirt cheap back then.

Were they really?
And this is where I rub my hands together and cackle with geeky glee. Just like we shouldn't judge our ancestors solely based on current standards and social norms, we shouldn't judge prices of yesteryear by today's dollar value.

I'll give you some examples.

(And don't worry. I'm not going to get super technical or get all crazy on the math, because Math is not my strongest subject. I'll fully admit I got my math-savvy husband to help me remember the equations I learned from my college economics class.)

I was looking in one of my Health-for-Victory meal planning guide from 1943. They stated that if you followed their meal plan, you could expect to spend between $14 - $16 a week on groceries. You're probably thinking, WOW! I'd love to pay $14/week for groceries! But what's the value of 1943's $14 in our current year of 2015?